Land Conservancy opens Orrville office

ORRVILLE -- There's a new player on the farmland preservation stage in Wayne County, with the Western Reserve Land Conservancy having recently opened an office in downtown Orrville.

According to Kenneth Wood, communications and marketing manager for the organization, the Western Reserve Land Conservancy is a private, nonprofit conservation organization "comprised of committed, passionate people who work with landowners and governmental agencies to preserve the scenic beauty, rural character and natural resources of a 14-county region of northern Ohio."

Wood said the land conservancy, headquartered in Chesterland in Geauga County, has field offices in Akron, Medina, Oberlin, Orwell, Painesville, Cleveland, and now Orrville. It has preserved 425 properties and 29,080 acres in the region. Its service area extends from the western Pennsylvania border to Sandusky Bay, and from Cleveland's lakefront to the farms of its "southern tier" counties of Wayne and Stark.

Asked why the WRLC was operating outside of the specific Western Reserve region of the state, Andy McDowell, field director of farming, agriculture and parks, said the organization's longtime policy has been to work in nearby counties requesting its assistance "unless there is a compelling reason not to do it." He said that while the conservancy does not work in Ashland or Richland counties, it has worked in Carroll and Columbiana counties.

The land conservancy was created Jan. 1, 2006 when eight local land trusts in northern Ohio joined forces in the largest-ever merger of land trusts, according to Rand Wentworth, president of the Land Trust Alliance. Founding partner organizations included the Chagrin River Land Conservancy, Bratenahl Land Conservancy, Headwaters Landtrust, Hudson Land Conservancy, Medina Summit Land Conservancy, PLACE, Tinkers Creek Land Conservancy and Firelands Land Conservancy. In December 2009 the organization grew again when it merged with Grand River Partners.

The resulting organization, McDowell said, is the biggest land trust in Ohio and one of the largest in the nation.

Wood said the WRLC "envisions a healthy, efficient and scenic landscape, a patchwork quilt of large natural areas connected by wildlife and river corridors; a beautiful region interspersed with well-planned agricultural, residential, retail and commercial development that supports our region's populace in a responsible and sustainable way."

McDowell said the organization has a staff of 35 people, including attorneys, planners, field workers, grant writers and others.

He said the goal of the organization is "to preserve the best of the best by taking a rifle scope rather than a shotgun approach" to land preservation. He said the group seeks "to preserve the best soils where the big agricultural infrastructure is. We want to initially preserve key farms so that there will be a ripple effect."

The WRLC, McDowell noted, is looking forward to partnering with the Killbuck Land Conservancy, the Wayne County Economic Development Council, the Agricultural Success Team and the Wayne County Farm Bureau.

McDowell believes the WRLC "can help bring more money to the table" at a time when "the public funding arena is evaporating" and federal programs in Northeast Ohio are struggling to get traction.

McDowell said that with the tidal wave of activity from the oil shale industry getting ready to flood across the region in the next few years, he predicts the WRLC will be busy with conservation easements for oil and gas.

"We look for ways to make this work, and we've found a few good ways. We do it by prioritizing farmland preservation efforts." said McDowell, a native of western Pennsylvania who, after teaching forestry and wildlife management, came to Ohio in the mid-1990s as an environmental science teacher at the Great Lakes Science Center. He eventually became vice president of exhibits and building operations. He and his wife, Jennifer, who works with the Cleveland Botanical Gardens, have two children and Andy has a passion for working with old tractors.

Talking about the organization's work in Wayne County, McDowell said that in 2010 it helped the Medina County Park District acquire a 232-acre parcel that straddles the Wayne-Medina county border by researching and preparing successful Clean Ohio grant applications. The property -- partially in Canaan Township and partially in Medina's Westfield Township -- sits atop a highly productive aquifer and has 25 acres of deep quarry lakes.

The land conservancy has been a regular attendee at the Ohio State University's Scarlet, Gray and Green Fair at the Wooster campus. Two College of Wooster graduates also play key roles on its staff: Director of Stewardship Pete McDonald and Associate Director of Conservation Funding Julia Mitchell.

McDowell said the WRLC's primary goal is "to form good, positive relationships in the county. We're not a competitor of the Killbuck Land Conservancy. We're all here to do the same thing. Our customers and the real beneficiaries of our work are our great-great grandchildren."

Reporter Paul Locher can be reached at 330-682-2055 or plocher@the-daily-record.com.